Never forget who you are
by chilibreath
Summary: In the beginning, there was love. How did this unlikely couple meet, marry, and have kids? Chapter 3 is up!
1. Chapter 1

**_A love story mixed with some background. I have to warn you that the math (i.e., the ages of the canon characters) may be a bit fudgy. I am not entirely sure at this point how many chapters this will take. Feedback is love._**

--

_Ember Island_

Lady Ursa was born and raised in Longquan, a province in the Earth Kingdom colonized many years ago when Fire Lord Sozin made his first strike at the Earth Kingdom. As far as she knew, she had never been to the home land before.

So it was surprising for the seventeen-year-old to find out that it would be the second time she stepped on Fire Nation soil. Her mother, Lady Yumi, reminded her daughter of the first time they visited as they walked around the small ship pulled by a tan-colored Sea Lion. In front of them was Lord Yul, Lady Yumi's husband and Ursa's father, who was conversing with his trusted steward, Daisuke. Behind the two women were Lady Yumi's personal maid, Lady Ursa's aging Nanny Yuna, and two large bodyguards.

"You were only four years old then, dear child, no wonder you recall nothing of it," Lady Yumi said softly as she walked with her daughter around the small, luxurious ship. "Your great-grandmother made me promise that she would be buried at Roku's Island when her time comes."

"Why did she want to be buried there, Mama?" Ursa asked. "I saw Roku's Island when we passed by it. There is nothing there."

Lady Yumi sighed. She reached down, picked up Ursa's right hand and squeezed it gently.

"Because Roku's Island was her home then, Ursa."

Lady Yumi raised her head and looked at her only child with a small smile. "Before the twin volcanoes erupted, it was a beautiful place (so Grandmother told me). Grandfather built the house with help from the neighbors; it was the highest one on the island, almost near the base of the largest volcano. They almost didn't need to buy food from the mainland because the soil there was so rich and healthy...well, just the meat, because they grew all the vegetables we ever needed."

Ursa suppressed a giggle. "A noblewoman PLANTING???"

The older woman laughed. "It was a different time, then; a different life. They even had a pet dragon!"

Ursa's eyes widened. "Wow," she whispered. Ursa has never seen a live dragon in her life. They became extinct after Prince Iroh killed the last one some twenty years ago.

Lady Yumi's smile then became smaller.

"Life changed after the eruptions," she murmured. "We lost grandfather because of that eruption. Grandmother took Papa and Uncle Shou to live with her brother's family on Ember Island. Uncle Shou worked for your great-great-uncle. It was fortunate that he was very generous..."

"And then," Ursa continued for her mother, "Grandfather met Grandmother and had you, then you met Father and he took you away to live the life of a noble in an Earth Kingdom colony."

Lady Yumi nodded. She squeezed her daughter's hand and motioned her to stop and look up. Ursa did so obediently; the men in front of them have concluded their talk.

"We are about to dock at Ember Island in a few minutes, my dears," Lord Yul announced.

--

Though the retinue of Lord Yul and his family were modest by Fire Nation royalty standards, their luggage was considerable. Lady Yumi and Lady Ursa had each packed ten trunks of personal items and clothing while Lord Yul had five trunks. Daisuke the steward was left behind to supervise the unloading of the baggage, his deep badgerfrog voice audible over all the grunts and mutterings of the servants and the general noise of lugging large trunks over the wooden slats of the dock.

The family walked towards the two-storey beach house that used to belong to the family of Ursa's maternal great-grandmother. The beach house was passed from great-grandmother's benevolent and childless brother to Uncle Shou, which Uncle Shou left it to his brother and his family in his will before his untimely death five years later, and then Grandfather left it to Lady Yumi, his only child, as part of her dowry.

Lady Ursa looked around, hoping that there was a sight, a sound or a smell that would trigger a memory of the last time she was here. She took note of the row of houses that stood next to theirs, from the smallest one standing on spindly stilts to the roof of the largest one that she spotted in the distance further to the right. The sea lion that pulled their vessel was barking in the background. She looked farther right, where another dock was visible.

And the vessel that was sitting in that space was quite a sight. It was larger and newer than the boat Lord Yul rented and decorated with large brass Fire Nation emblems, three on each side. The first deck seemed to be made of the same wood the hull was made of, and it was surrounded by blue-black pillars with brass at the ends. Above it was a tent lined with a rich, dark red canvass, brass, and red curtains. On top of this tent was a triangular red flag with the insignia of the Fire Nation. Even the Sea Lion hitched to this boat looked bigger.

"Oh my goodness," Lady Yumi said breathlessly, placing a shaky white hand over her red-clad bosom.

"Ah," Lord Yul said, stroking his reddish-brown beard. "It seems one of the Fire Lord's sons has come to relax at Ember Island as well."

Ursa looked at her father. "How do you know the Fire Lord himself isn't on that boat too, Father?"

Lord Yul grinned. "Because I saw the ship reserved for Fire Lord Azulon himself when he visited here in Ember Island the last time, and let me tell you, daughter, it was a whole lot BIGGER than that yacht."

"The last time?" Ursa repeated, surprised. "You mean when Great-grandmother was buried at Roku's Island?"

Lord Yul nodded. "Of course. Your great-grandmother summoned us here weeks before she died. She lived in this house—" Lord Yul gestured to the modest yellow and red two-story structure in front of them, "—for most of her life since she was widowed."

Lord Yul dropped his arm and looked at the ship of the Fire Lord's son at the neighboring dock. Ursa noticed that her mother's gaze hadn't left the magnificent yacht since first noticing it.

"Bah!" Lord Yul exclaimed, shaking his head. "It's not likely they'll take notice of us, lowly noble folk that we are. Let us retire before supper."

--

**Author's Notes:  
Longquan is an actual Chinese city, which literally means "Dragon Fountain".**

**The names Shou, Yumi, Yul, Daisuke, and Yuna were Chinese and Japanese names I found online. Yes, Yul as in "Yul Brynner".**

**ETA: After considering the math problem, I did a bit of an overhaul. Ursa is now Roku's GREAT-Granddaughter. A hell of a liberty now that I chose to loosely translate Iroh's meaning in "The Avatar and the Firelord".  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: In the previous chapter, after finally DOING the math, I made a lot of changes. Ursa is now Roku's great-granddaughter, and I've now taken a lot of liberty with Iroh's statement in "The Avatar and the Firelord".**

--

While the family talked about the Fire Lord's yacht on the docks, Nanny Yuna and Lady Yumi's personal maid, Prachi, assisted Daisuke in herding the porters and ten house-helps into the beach house. This was why, when Ursa and her parents entered the house, they were immediately escorted to their rooms on the second floor to rest before supper.

There were five rooms in the second floor. Lord Yul and Lady Yumi occupied separate bedrooms next to each other (Lady Yumi could not sleep because of her husband's loud snores) and Ursa was led into a room across the hallway.

Ursa's room was beautifully decorated in the traditional Fire Nation colors of dark brown, red and yellow. The four-poster bed was parallel to the large windows, which looked out towards the sea. In the middle of the room, obscuring the view of a large red carpet with intricate yellow needlework, were her trunks. Two maids were busy unpacking the contents into the large wardrobe.

"Time to change, Lady Ursa," Nanny Yuna announced. She gestured to the four-poster bed, where a fresh set of clothes were laid out for Ursa to change into. A jug of water, a glass, and a large bowl stood on a small table next to the bed. "Supper will be ready in a few hours. After supper, I will have your bath prepared here before you sleep. Heaven knows you must be tired from the trip."

Nanny Yuna looked delicate. She was a reed-thin woman of middle years and shorter than her charge by a foot, but she had the grip of a mighty Earthbender, evidenced by the way Ursa's admirers would howl after getting their arms or ears pinched for trying to steal a kiss when they thought she wasn't looking. One time, Ursa overheard two of the family gardeners whisper about an arm-wrestling match between Yuna and the large Daisuke, but Yuna denied it when Ursa asked her.

Ursa looked outside. The sun was setting, but it was still bright outside.

"I don't feel like resting, Nanny Yuna," she said as she walked towards the window, looking out at the sea. "Can't we take a walk outside?"

"No," Nanny Yuna said tersely.

"Please?"

"No."

"Pretty please?"

"No."

"PLEASE!"

"NO!"

"With fire flakes on top?"

"No."

"Can I take the maids with me?"

"No; they haven't finished unpacking yet."

(The maids hid their disappointment by turning their faces away from Nanny Yuna.)

"What if I asked Father?"

"He'll say no."

Right at that moment, they heard a loud snore from across the hall. Nanny Yuna gave Ursa a triumphant look.

"Well, can I at least look around the house?" Ursa asked, slightly annoyed.

--

After washing her face and changing into comfortable robes, Ursa went down to the receiving room. Yuna was left behind in her room to supervise the unpacking.

The receiving room was a large and tastefully done room, the wood paneling at the bottom dark and gleaming in contrast to the light red paint on the upper half. It looked sparsely furnished when one enters the room from the main door, as the first items they will see is a wine-colored sofa lined across one wall, facing a tapestry. Two sets of potted plants are set at the doors leading outside and to the dining room. In the middle of the room was a low hexagon-shaped table made of dark red wood. Five sofas covered with soft red velvety material surround the hexagon table, designed to partially form a hexagon judging from the ends, with the sixth side providing an opening for people to access the sofas. Beyond this curious set was a wide window, its shutters closed. Ursa approached this window and prepared to unlock it...

"Allow me, my lady."

Startled, Ursa turned around. Standing next to the hexagonal table and sofa set was a woman with iron-gray hair weaved into a thick braid hanging behind her back, a wealth of wrinkles, and a sweet smile. She bowed and gestured towards the window Ursa was trying to open. "I'll open that for you," she said in a low, pleasing voice.

Ursa blinked, wondering how she was unable to hear this woman enter the receiving room. She stood aside as the elder approached. The woman opened the windows outwards and said, "Not much to look at here, except for my little garden."

Ursa looked. "It's wonderful!" she said, smiling widely.

The young woman gazed at the small rectangle in the middle, which was growing an assortment of vegetables like tomato-carrots and cabbages and, from the wonderful amalgamation of smells, different spice plants. Surrounding the vegetable plot were an assortment of flower pots and bushes. "Did you plant all this yourself?"

The old woman waved her hand. "Oh, I had some help," she replied. "My brothers, before they were old enough to sign up for the Army, helped me lay out the plot and prepare the soil for planting. All I did was find the seeds and do the pruning." She placed a hand on her chest. "My name is Shihong, my lady. I am the wife of the caretaker here."

"I'm Ursa," the younger woman replied, warming up to the friendly old woman.

"I know," Shihong said, surprising Ursa again. "I was here when your great-grandmother, Ta Min, passed away," she continued, seeing the expression on Ursa's face.

"Oh my," said Ursa, shaking her head a little. "I still don't remember much of that time, to be honest. I would have remembered you!"

Then she sobered. "I would have remembered her, too."

Ursa looked at Shihong straight in the eye.

"Did I actually meet her before she...well, you know..."

Shihong nodded, her sweet smile fading a little. "She called you an adorable little dumpling, if I remember right. You were a plump little thing, running everywhere and trying to open every cabinet in the house!"

Ursa laughed, blushing a little. She looked back at the garden and noticed something...

"There's a path behind your garden! Where does it lead to?" she asked.

Shihong moved to where Ursa stood. "Oh, that. It leads to the town proper."

Ursa smiled. "Really? Is it far?"

Shihong tilted her head to one side. "Not really..."

"Oh, could you...?"

"NO!"

Ursa and Shihong jumped in surprise as Nanny Yuna strode towards them, her face twitching. Ursa breathed in and sighed. She had saved the best threat for last...

"Okay Nanny Yuna, you win," she said in a dejected voice, stopping Yuna in her tracks with her arm stretched out. "I'm going up to rest before supper. I'm sure I'll have enough energy to play the erhu after desert..."

Yuna was very adept at hiding her emotions, but Ursa knew well enough to look at her Nanny's eyes to see her pupils dilate in reaction at her charge's promise of playing the two-stringed fiddle. Lord Yul himself taught Ursa how to play, but he was tone deaf (and in denial of being tone deaf), hence he was not a very good teacher. However, no one dared to tell him that fact, resulting in Ursa playing the erhu badly. And a badly played erhu gave Nanny Yuna a headache whenever Lord Yul asked his daughter to play. She once passed out when Lord Yul decided to have an erhu duet with his daughter, her teeth clenched in agony.

When Yuna withdrew her arm, Ursa knew she won.

"I'll go get my cloak!"

--

**A/N 2:**

**Prachi is an Indian name that means "morning".  
Shihong is a Chinese name that means, "the world is red".**


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: I wonder what the Ember Island Players are up to this time. Ursa sees more of Ember Island._

--

Ursa had hoped to visit the town briefly and on her own with Shihong and Nanny Yuna as her guides, but she didn't expect Nanny Yuna to bring Daisuke's understudy, Shang, along with them.

Shang was Daisuke's nephew and was built just as strongly as Daisuke. Unlike his uncle, Shang was a mellow young man with the trusting nature of a child, a trait his uncle hoped to get rid of when he took the eighteen-year-old under his wing two years ago. Ursa knew that Daisuke was training the boy to become someone else's valet.

"You didn't have to come with us, Shang," Ursa said on their way to the town. "Though I must say, I didn't think Daisuke would entrust you with our safety on your own yet."

Shang smiled. "Uncle was very troubled when Miss Yuna told him about your desire to, uh, 'get some fresh air'. He wanted to go personally, but you know Lord Yul doesn't want anyone else to help him with his, uh, medical condition."

"Ah, yes," Ursa replied, her brow creased a little. Only a few people knew that Lord Yul had a "problem". It was a closely guarded secret that Ursa was privy to when she was five years old, when she witnessed this "problem" manifest without warning during dinner. To protect this secret and the reputation of Lord Yul's family, only a select few members of the staff knew for certain the nature of this "problem": Nanny Yuna and Daisuke were two of them.

Ursa hoped it would not manifest too much while they were here at Ember Island.

--

The path behind the house took them literally down to the town. Shihong led the group down a set of wide stone steps (Ursa counted fifty three in all). Beyond the steps was a flat expanse of white tiles, marking a path to the main plaza of Ember Island. The white-tiled, square-shaped plaza was teeming with people and small red tents. The cries of vendors hawking their wares were audible over the loud murmur of the tourists and locals milling around the plaza. Dead center at the plaza, some performance was in play.

Nanny Yuna looked up. The sky was turning purple as the sun was setting. "Lady Ursa, you've seen the town. We really shouldn't let Shihong abandon her responsibilities at the house, particularly now that suppertime is drawing near…"

Shihong chuckled. "No worries, Miss Yuna," she said, smiling at the sour-looking nanny. "I left the dinner preparations in the capable hands of my daughters and niece. They're the most excellent cooks in the whole island, I assure you."

Ursa turned to her nanny and pretended to play an invisible fiddle. Shang looked away, pretending that the men's setting up the lighted paper lamps in the distance was the most fascinating occupation in the world.

Nanny Yuna grumbled.

"Thirty minutes," she muttered. "Then we return to the house."

--

Ursa loved every minute of it.

The first thing she noticed was how everyone dressed. The locals and tourists were dressed less formally than they would at the capital—"less" being the operative word. Ursa looked at her long-sleeved red blouse and long skirt and glanced at a young woman standing next to her at a stall that sold trinkets. The girl was wearing a sleeveless, form-fitting white blouse with a gold clasp at the back of her neck and a white skirt that only reached her knees.

"I feel overdressed," Ursa whispered to Shihong.

"Well, this _is_ the summer capital of the Fire Nation, Lady Ursa," Shihong whispered back. She picked up a necklace set with a large red quartz. "You would lovely wearing this!"

"Oh, but I didn't bring any…"

"Good eve, my ladies!"

Ursa squeaked in surprise. The gravelly voice that surprised her belonged to a man with a white beard. He wore long, flowing robes of deep red and a white wig, worn long with a top-knot adorned with a large, ostentatiously yellow ornament that looked suspiciously like...

"Is that supposed to be a Royal Artifact worn only by the Crown Prince?" Nanny Yuna asked the strangely dressed man, eyeing the strangely proportioned prop with a sharp eye.

The red-robed man bowed, the crown wiggling precariously on his head. "A good replica, isn't it?"

Shang snorted loudly, and then turned his attention to a passing vendor selling sizzle-crisps.

Shihong was more polite. "I can't tell the difference," she muttered, covering her mouth with her hand to hide her grin. She suddenly remembered the necklace she was holding and hurried to return it to the display table.

Ursa didn't bother hiding her grin. "And why, pray tell, are you pretending to be a member of the Royal Family?"

"Pretending is what seasons my fire flakes, my fair lady," the man pronounced. He reached under his robe and pulled out a yellow flyer. "I am Nobu, veteran member of the Ember Island Players, and I would be honored if you lovely ladies and your bodyguard would attend our play on premiere night tomorrow!"

Bemused, Ursa took the flyer from Nobu's hand. Shihong and Nanny Yuna leaned forward to see what was on the flyer:

**"_Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin" is a new production from celebrated playwright Goku Sim after more than twelve years of research and with the full support of His Majesty, Fire Lord Azulon._**

**_Brought to you by the critically acclaimed Ember Island Players!_**

Nobu, who had moved to Nanny Yuna's left, pointed at the painted portrait on the flyer. "That's me! I'm playing Avatar Roku! I'm one of the leads!"

Ursa, Nanny Yuna and Shihong just stared as Nobu jumped away from them (holding on to his large headdress) and spread his arms out, showing the women his full regalia. His white beard started to detach itself from his right ear.

"You'll come tomorrow, right?"

--

"Avatar Roku and Firelord Sozin?" Lord Yul murmured. "_Critically acclaimed_ Ember Island Players? Why, I've never even heard of them!"

Ursa nearly choked on a bite of smoked duck. Behind her, Nanny Yuna poured a glass of cold tea from a pitcher into her goblet before moving to pat her back, mainly to hide her smirk rather than offering a drink to her charge.

Their group arrived at the house moments after Shang started turning a strange shade of purple and red and coughing up a storm. Ursa would later tell Shang that she swore she could see sizzle-crisps flying out of his nose from his efforts before an irate Daisuke took his nephew out to the kitchen.

Lord Yul waited until Ursa composed herself. On their arrival at the house, Ursa was concerned to see how pale he looked. She was quite contrite for her impulsive decision to visit the town. However, Lord Yul immediately forgave his only child after she gave him an honest accounting of their short foray at Ember Island town.

"Do you really want to watch this play?" he asked his daughter. "You already know of the story of Firelord Sozin and Avatar Roku."

Across the table from her, the always bubbly Lady Yumi was silently picking at her plate of chili noodles.

Ursa sipped some cool water from the goblet Nanny Yuna handed her before replying: "I do, Father, but it would be _fascinating_ to actually see and hear it on stage! I met one of the actors; he promises the action sequences and effects will be 'quite the sight to see'."

Lord Yul scratched his long beard, ignoring his own plate of smoked duck. "Well, I am curious to see how they would show the other bending arts when they don't have foreigners playing the part. Particularly Airbenders—I mean, they've been extinct for so many years!"

He turned to his quiet wife. "What do you think, dear? After-dinner entertainment tomorrow night at the theater?"

"When it is favorable," Lady Yumi answered, giving her spouse a pointed look. "If not, then we'll go some other night."

Ursa sank a little into her seat. Her father's episodes usually happen at night. How could she have forgotten?

--

A/N 2:

Nobu was a name I got from "Memoirs of a Geisha".

Goku Sim was a name that was kind of inspired from Dragon Ball Z. LOL.


End file.
